by Jim Stevens
Kennard slowly unbuttons his shirt and removes it. I, and the rest of the assembled, take a quick glance and see the effects of Kennard’s diet. It isn’t pretty.
Time to go. I signal my troops to follow me into the hallway where Oland is waiting.
“What do you think, Oland?”
“The way to find hungry bunny is to put out carrot and watch.”
“You think it’s all a little screwy?”
“My money would never find its way into that case.”
“Why not?”
“Phony money work just as well as real money.”
“Then why are you using the real thing?”
“I try to talk him out of it, but Mr. Kennard insisted.”
“What would you do?”
“Wait for body part,” Oland admits.
“Really?”
“A toe would be nice,” Oland says. “Especially after a pedicure.”
CHAPTER 6
The unmarked police van, which looks exactly like a police van with no markings and will fool absolutely no one, is parked at the base of the stairway on the underground street. Oland is inside sitting before four TV monitors, wearing a headset with a microphone that connects him to everyone in the field. Everyone except me.
I look upward about twenty stories and pick out a guy on the condo balcony using a high powered set of binoculars. He’s supposed to be tracking Kennard, but I sense he’s scoping out the hot girls below him, of which there are many in the enormous crowd. There are so many tarps and blankets spread out on the ground that it’s hard to see any grass at all.
The pedestrian paths are a sea of moving people. Some walking, some walking bicycles, some pulling fully loaded, little red wagons, and others rollerblading at a snail’s pace. There are hawkers selling glow-in-the-dark plastic necklaces for two dollars, which will be one dollar by the end of the night. Standing on the small hill, I see an ocean of people stretching for a half-mile around the harbor. A million bodies may be too low an estimate.
I have deposited Tiffany, Kelly, and Care on a blanket about forty feet down from where I stand. I would feel a lot better if all three were tethered by chains to a mature tree, but no such luck.
It’s a few minutes before nine. The park lights go off. Anyone standing somehow finds a seat. The walkways suddenly clear. Everyone quiets in anticipation and looks to the sky.
The symphony orchestra in the band shell begins playing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The first volley of fireworks erupts as the orchestra hits the cannon fodder notes. The crowd responds in kind with the first of many “ohhs” and “ahhs.”
I move left a few feet to see Kennard pulling the wheelie suitcase along the walkway. He resembles a misguided tourist in search of a cheap hotel. He lumbers past the tennis office to the open pay phone and waits, watching the sky over the lake burst into a pyrotechnic display of phenomenal color and light. The lights, the sounds, and the dazzling swirls of gun powder exploding in mid-air are truly awe inspiring. Unfortunately, I am the only one in the crowd looking the other way.
Fifteen minutes in, with Anchors Aweigh finishing up the military tribute, I see Kennard bend over, and get down on his hands and knees. He reaches around the base of the phone stand and removes a cell phone from behind it. He straightens up, holds the cell phone to his ear, and waits. His lips don’t move. After a moment he lowers the cell phone, looks around, and does an entire three-sixty. He tosses the cell phone in a trash can. This is not good. Next, Kennard untucks his shirt, reaches underneath, and strips the wire and duct tape off his body. He winces in pain.
Just as the massive, final fireworks extravaganza erupts in the sky, lighting up not only the lakefront, but the entire downtown area, Kennard deposits his tracking device into another overflowing trash can, and wheels the suitcase down the path towards the lake. The minute he clears the tennis building, the crowd lets out a monstrous cheer and applause. The show is over and the race is on, as each spectator tries to beat the other million spectators home for the night. It’s a can of a million worms, all slithering in different directions. There’s no rhyme or reason or rational to this mass exodus. Kennard is literally engulfed in an ocean of humanity.
I give chase.
Trying to stay perpendicular to his movement, I bounce off people like an atom in a super collider. Kennard’s not more than five-eight and his head keeps disappearing in the ocean of people. I lose him, pick him up, and lose him again. I search towards Lakeshore Drive, which has been closed to traffic to allow the multitude of people quicker access to wherever they’re going or parked. It’s a tsunami of humanity. I stop, stand on a patch of grass, and jump up and down like a jack-in-the-box, trying to pick the Kennard needle out of the proverbial haystack.
I hear a familiar call from the urban wild: “Oh, Mr. Sherlock.”
Tiffany, with Care on her shoulders and Kelly ahead of her, are about one hundred feet north of me, running towards the Lake.
“Tiffany, I thought I told you…!”
“He went thataway.” Tiffany shouts to me, as Care and Kelly point east to Lakeshore Drive, which Kennard is fast approaching.
Again, I take chase.
City trash trucks and utility vehicles are now driving onto the grassy area of the park to start the clean-up, which also tells me Lakeshore Drive, which locals refer to as the Drive, will soon be open. I sprint as fast as I can, which I admit isn’t very fast, down the path to the street. I can see Kennard, moving quite rapidly, as if he’s being chased, toward the northbound ramp. The wheels on the bottom of the suitcase are certainly earning the Underwriters Seal of Approval.
Tiffany and the girls are now fifty feet ahead of me, maybe fifty yards from Kennard, who is moving up the on-ramp, panting like a stair-climbing chain smoker. Care is still on Tiffany’s shoulders pointing the way like General Sherman leading his men into battle. All she’s missing is a sword. Kelly I can’t see, but what I do see is a black or dark blue, late model sedan screech to a stop alongside Kennard and knock him to the pavement. The passenger’s side door opens. Kennard tosses the suitcase in first and himself next. A second or two later, the car takes off like a rocket onto the Drive.
Game over.
I catch up to Tiffany, who is now seated on the curb of the road, trying to catch her breath. “I need more cardio.”
“Where’s Kelly?”
“She was up in front of us,” Care says.
“Where?” I’m one beat away from panic as I frantically search the crowd.
“Dad,” Kelly says emerging from a gaggle of people.
I take her in my arms and hug her, then yell, “I told you three to stay put!”
“What fun would that be?”
“I got the license plate, Dad,” Kelly says triumphantly.
“Yeah,” Tiffany says to me. “Now, who’s the party-pooper?”
“What is it?”
“Ah…”
“Kelly?”
“Whoops,” Kelly says. “I forgot it.”
My oldest daughter has not inherited my memory gene.
_____
As was the plan, we rendezvous back at the police van. Oland sits in the director’s seat in front of the monitors, broadcasting four shots of a trashed Grant Park being swept up by the city’s sanitation workers. He’s not a happy camper.
“Girls, you should watch this,” I tell Kelly and Care. “It might give you some tips on cleaning your room.”
“Get them a cleaning lady,” Tiffany says.
“They already have one,” I inform Tiffany. “Me.”
Oland doesn’t laugh. I place my hand on his shoulder.
“I may have to retract my statement about rank amateurs or bad professionals.”
“Why?”
“He who cast aspersions on others, aspire to do the same.”
Kelly and Care have used the facilities and have found the snack drawer—yet another bonanza of phony fruit and fructose filled confections. They each motion to me as
if asking, “Can we?”
I motion to Oland. He says, “Sure.”
Kelly and Care dig in.
“Now, what do we do?” Tiffany asks.
“Wait.”
“I hate waiting,” she says.
“You make me wait for you,” I tell her.
“That’s different, Mr. Sherlock. I do that out of principle.”
CHAPTER 7
Kennard’s shoes, which were equipped with a tracking device, show up in an alley behind Wrigley Field. The Cubs are out of town. I wish I was. Although the shoes and clothes were a couple of sizes too big, Kennard’s ensemble looks quite dashing on the homeless guy now wearing the outfit. He wasn’t real thrilled about giving up his new shoes to a couple of cops.
“Get your own, ya damn Nazis!”
The reverse-scavenger party reconvenes at Kennard’s condo. Joining Oland, Tiffany, my girls, and me are Boo, Safari, Elmhurst, and Venus. The family had taken in the fireworks show at Moomah’s place. It’s well past midnight.
“I was going to bring Moomah,” Venus says. “But it wasn’t a good night for her.”
“She thought a house was going to fall on her,” Safari explains.
Care and Kelly are hitting the exhaustion point, but I feel a bit strange putting them to bed in the guest room. I plop them in front of the TV in the adjacent den, and trust they will fall asleep soon.
“We want to know what happened,” Elmhurst says to Oland.
“We lost him in Grant Park.”
“Didn’t you have him wired?” Safari asks excitedly.
“He removed it when he received the ransom call,” Oland answers.
“Why’d he do that?” Elmhurst asks
“Maybe dog never liked color of collar,” Oland tries to explain.
“Did you put a helicopter on him?” Venus chimes in.
I suspect the whole family watches Law and Order.
“He was in the middle of a million people, impossible to follow. It would be like finding a pin in a haystack of needles,” I answer, relieving Oland.
“That’s why you should’ve had one of those orbiting eyes-in-the-sky tracking his every move,” Boo says.
“The problem with using an orbiting satellite in sky is that one doesn’t exist,” Oland is the bearer of more bad news.
“Then you should have used a drone,” Safari barks back.
Oland hangs his head. Even Charlie Chan wouldn’t have a comeback to that one.
“I have a question,” I interrupt to re-steer this absurd conversation. “How did you get the name Safari?”
“I like to travel off the beaten path.”
“I like to bowl,” I say. “But I don’t call myself Gutterball.”
“His name’s really Augustine,” Venus says. “Mine is really Clarissa.”
“You changed it to Venus?”
“The Goddess of Love.”
“It’s also the name of a woman’s shaving razor.” Boo’s attitude never seems to waver. “A man-eating flytrap.”
Beep, beep, beep.
Oland flips the switch on the communication device attached to his belt, presses the earpiece closer to his ear and speaks into the microphone clipped to his shirt collar. “What?”
He listens as he walks away from the group. They watch him intently. Oland speaks in hushed tones, listens again, breaks the connection, and turns back to his audience. “Kennard’s been found. He’ll be here in less than twenty minutes.”
There’s more of a gasp than a sigh of relief from the peanut gallery.
“How about the money?”
I would’ve thought either “Is he okay?” or “How about Schnooks?” would be the next question, but no such luck.
“Gone,” Oland says.
“Well,” Elmhurst says. “Subtract that from his share of the inheritance.”
“Bullshit,” Boo barks back.
“Why should we have to pay for his misfortune?” Safari asks.
“It’s the cost of being a part of the family,” Boo answers.
“I don’t buy that,” Elmhurst says.
“We’ll sue,” Boo says. “You can’t subtract from an estate not yet divided.”
Elmhurst says, “You’re going to have to prove that a ransom is a business expense. Good luck with that.”
“Can’t we all just get along and be happy?” Venus asks.
“No,” the group concludes in unison.
I take this family spat as an opportunity and go into the den to check on my girls. They are both sound asleep, although the number of empty candy and snack wrappers could mean they have overdosed on artificial sweeteners. I retrieve the bedspread from the second bedroom and use it to cover the two. I give them a kiss before returning to the reunion.
All families are dysfunctional, but dysfunctional in their own unique way. The Richmond/Horsley/Cavendish/Wickwire clan, the offspring of Moomah, seems to have it in spades. Safari and Kennard, although brothers, look and act nothing like each other. Safari is tall, thin, bald with a beard; a sort of modern day Grizzly Adams. Venus, who is closer in age to Boo than her half-brothers, is a throwback to the hippie generation. She wears long skirts with paisley patterns, sandals with soles made from old tires, tie-dyed t-shirts, and enough gold, iron-ore, shells, and ceramic neckwear to add ten pounds to her overall weight. Her hair is a tangle of Rastafarian weaves that hang down below her waist in the back. Elmhurst dresses as if he wants you to see him as studious: white shirts, tweed jackets and black, Clark Kent glasses. To me, he’s more of a nutty professor than university PhD. They all seem to be on the opposite ends of their own particular spectrum.
“Moomah would be livid,” Elmhurst says. “If she were sane.”
“If there’s anything that can get her livid, it’s losing her money,” Venus says.
“A million bucks down the drain,” Safari adds.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Safari,” Boo says. “The kidnappers give double miles for every ransom.”
Elmhurst approaches Oland. “Could you be specific on the plans to re-secure the funds?”
“I assure you we will do everything possible in returning both the woman and the money.”
“Forget the woman,” Safari says. “Get the money.”
“What is your ‘win and loss’ percentage in this type of case?” Elmhurst asks. “How much ransom money do you expect to retrieve?”
“I don’t have the figures off the top of my head,” Oland says.
“Could you give me an approximation?”
“Not good.”
Elmhurst turns indignant. The furrows on his brow remind me of a plowed field. “Not good is not good enough for us,” he exclaims in a superb, spoiled child inflection.
“What is good for gander is not always good for flock,” Oland says.
For the next ten minutes the family mills around, eats, plays with their cell phones, and takes verbal pot shots at one another. Oland goes out on the balcony where he takes and makes calls. I stand off to the side, observing the fun in dysfunction. Tiffany takes out a nail file and starts in on one of her pinkies.
Two minutes later Bozo the Clown walks in the front door, accompanied by two of Chicago’s finest.
“What the hell?” Elmhurst says for the entire group.
One cop squeezes the red nose he’s holding in his hand. Honk. He tosses it to Oland who has come in from outside.
“We found him clowning around a bus stop in Pilsen,” the other cop says.
“Thanks, guys,” Oland says. The two cops go directly into the kitchen to be disappointed at the dearth of snacks available.
“It was a nightmare.” Kennard’s voice comes from beneath the mask and costume.
“Sit down,” Oland tells him as the family rally round.
“I love the look,” Safari tells his brother.
“I don’t like clowns,” Tiffany says. “They’re creepy.”
Kennard collapses on the couch. “They forced me at gunpoint to take off all my
clothes and put on this ridiculous suit. It was humiliating.”
“What part?” Safari asks.
“I feared for my life.” Kennard leans back and tries to get comfortable by resting his feet on the coffee table, but the size sixteen shoes make it difficult.
I glance up to see Care standing in the doorway, wiping the sleep out of her eyes. “Is that the clown that was supposed to show up at my birthday party last year?”
“No, Honey.”
“Does this one do balloon animals?”
“Go back to sleep, Care. It’s a dream caused by too much junk food.”
Care turns and heads back to the den.
“You can take off the mask,” Oland says to Kennard.
“I can’t get it off. They must have put it on with Super Glue.”
The orange hair, sticking out in pointed swirls from the sides of his head, doesn’t look bad on Kennard and the large polka-dot pattern on the billowing pantaloons really round out the ensemble.
“I need a drink,” Kennard says.
Boo shakes her head. “Gee, ya think?”
Venus finds a glass and a bottle of clear liquor, pours out a good long shot, and we all wait until Kennard downs the Popov in one gulp.
Kennard attempts to pour a second, but Oland stops him. “What happened?”
“The call didn’t come from the pay phone,” Kennard says, his adrenaline pumping. “It came from a cell phone taped underneath the phone stand.”
“We know that. What did they say?”
“They said they knew you were watching. They said they’d kill Schnooks if I didn’t remove my wire and do exactly what they told me to do.”
“Which was?”
Kennard grabs the bottle when Oland looks away, pours a refill, and downs the shot before Oland can intervene.
“He said to move towards the lake. When I get to the on-ramp to the Drive, walk up, and wait. Two seconds later this car comes up and knocks me flat on my ass. Then some guy pulls me and the money inside, and we take off down the Drive.”
“There were two of them?”
“Cars or people?” Kennard asks.
“People.”